"There is an unguarded entrance."
"You will take us to this entrance as soon as these enemies have been secured," the squad leader said ominously. "Did more of them come in?"
"No," Su-mil said. "These three were all we brought in."
"Yet others may follow," the Lakra said, turning halfway around and giving a brief order in his own language. One of the mercenaries grunted a response, and a third of them turned and hurried back the way they'd come. Again stepping carefully over the bodies of their fallen comrades, they returned to the corner where they'd first appeared and set up a defensive position. "And these?" the leader continued, gesturing back toward the dead Lakra. "What happened to them?"
"The Imperials shot them down," Su-mil said, his voice contemptuous. Again, his weapon shifted. "I and my people played no part in the slaughter."
"Despite these weapons you carry?" the squad leader snapped, his voice suddenly heavy with suspicion. "And how do you come by them, if the invaders merely stopped you on the street?"
Su-mil's weapon shifted aim again. "The weapons are ours," he conceded. "We told the Imperials we would agree to assist them." Once more, his aim shifted. "But we would never use such weapons against our Glorious Majesty and our fellow servants."
Twister grimaced. He was a traitor, all right, a traitor to his own people as well as to the Imperials who were bleeding and dying to try to help them. And a shameless smooth-talker on top of it, standing there looking calmly at his victims as he pointed his weapon at Twister's left eye.
His left eye?
Twister stiffened as it suddenly clicked. The weapon's apparently arbitrary movement wasn't arbitrary at all. It was, instead, Su-mil carefully alternating his aim between Twister's left and right eyes.
Left-handed: a lie. Right-handed: the truth.
Quickly, he ran back through the conversation, this time paying attention to where the weapon had been pointed at each exchange. We have captured them—a lie. I am Su-mil—the truth. I am a loyal subject of His Glorious Majesty—a lie. We found them on the street, clearly intent on attacking our Glorious Majesty's home—the truth. They pointed their weapons at us and demanded we lead them inside—a lie. We showed them where the tunnel was hidden—the truth. I and my people played no part in the slaughter—a lie. We told the Imperials we would agree to assist them—the truth.
We would never use such weapons against our Glorious Majesty and our fellow servants—a lie.
And for the first time since Aurek-Seven had run into Su-mil and his soldiers, Twister felt a tight smile creasing his face. A clever and resourceful fellow, this Su-mil. And he was obviously hoping Twister and his fellow Imperials were the same.
Because it was suddenly clear what the Eickarie had in mind. He'd told the truth about an unguarded entrance into the fortress, but the Lakran squad leader had jumped to the conclusion that that entrance was connected to one of the two known tunnels. The fact that he'd sent some of his troops back to guard against any further intrusion from that direction was proof.
Which meant that if Aurek Company had sent reinforcements, they might be emerging any moment now into the middle of a split enemy force.
Both parts of which were facing the wrong direction.
Reaching out with his tongue, he touched his comlink switch. "Cloud: report," he murmured, pitching his voice low enough to be inaudible outside his helmet.
Cloud's voice in his ear was the most welcome thing he'd heard for days. "We're in the room beyond the wall," Cloud's voice came promptly in his ears. "Situation?"
"Pinned to right of first cross," Twister said, sensing Shadow and Watchman stir slightly as their comlinks came on and they picked up the news of the approaching reinforcements. "Enemy split: four-eight. Friendlies pinned with us to right."
"Acknowledged," Cloud said. "On our way."
"It's good to know the Glorious Majesty has such loyal supporters," the Lakran squad leader rumbled to Su-mil with only a hint of sarcasm. "You will put your weapons on the floor now."
"But we face very dangerous enemies," Su-mil protested, his weapon shifting to Twister's right eye. "We cannot know when it will be necessary to fire."
"The Lakra will do any firing that is necessary," the squad leader assured him, turning his blaster away from Twister and pressing the muzzle against the side of Su-mil's neck. "Now. Put down your weapons."
"You'll have no trouble on that score anyway," Twister said, lifting his right hand and pointing his forefinger straight at Su-mil's right eye. "When you see your friends falling in front of you, you'll know the time of death has arrived."
"Silence!" the squad leader spat, sending a baleful glare at the stormtroopers. From Twister's headset came a pair of acknowledging double-clicks as Shadow and Watchman confirmed his veiled order. "Very soon now, you will be begging for the time of death to be allowed you."
"Countdown: three," Cloud's voice murmured in Twister's ear.
"Oh, I don't know," Twister said proudly, raising his voice to fill the corridor and help cover any inadvertent footfalls. "Somehow, I don't think so."
And as the last word rang through the air, a group of white-armored men boiled into the corridor behind the Eickaries.
Twister didn't wait to see any more. Even as the reinforcements began firing at both ends of the split Lakran force, he and the rest of Aurek-Seven threw themselves flat onto the floor.
Leaving a direct line of fire between the mercenaries behind them and the Eickarie firing wall.
Su-mil had promised that his soldiers wouldn't freeze the next time. He was right. Twister hadn't even gotten a grip on his dropped weapon when the hodgepodge of Eickarie weapons opened up, laying down a blaze of fire at the Lakran squad. By the time he had scooped up the BlasTech and rolled over ready to use it, the battle was over.
He scrambled hastily to his feet. "Report," he called into his comlink.
"Clear," Cloud's voice came back. "No casualties."
The same, unfortunately, couldn't be said for the Eickaries. Of the twenty soldiers Su-mil had brought in with them, six were on the floor, four writhing silently in pain, the other two already dead. Even outnumbered as they'd been, the Lakran squad had given a good account of themselves.
At least, he hoped all the casualties had been caused by the Lakra. It would be very unfortunate if some of the rescuers had accidentally overshot their targets.
"This way, Twister," Cloud called. Twister looked up from the Eickarie casualties to find the rest of the stormtrooper squad moving back along the corridor toward the intersection where the newly dead Lakra were lying. "The company's meeting heavy resistance in the tunnels," he went on. "New orders are to attack from this end and try to break up their defenses."
Twister looked at Su-mil. The Eickarie was standing over the body of the Lakran squad leader, his eyes on Twister, his orange highlights gone dark again. "I'm sorry, but we can't do that," he told Cloud. "I made a deal with Su-mil to clear the dungeons first."
Cloud stopped short, turning around to look back at his unit leader. "Twister, this was a direct order," he warned.
"Understood," Twister said. "Good luck. We'll join you when we can."
One of the other stormtroopers had paused beside Cloud. "Yet you said you would not help us," Su-mil reminded Twister quietly.
"That was when I wasn't sure I could rely on your soldiers," Twister told him. "You've now proven that I can." A movement caught his eye: Cloud and the other stormtrooper had finished their conversation, and Cloud was jogging back down the corridor toward them as the rest of the stormtroopers resumed their march in the other direction. "I hope you're not here to argue," he warned as Cloud came to a halt in front of him.
"Hardly," Cloud assured him. "I decided that if they can manage without three of us, they can probably manage without four."
"And whole-unit court-martials are so much more efficient?" Shadow said dryly.
"Something like that," Cloud agreed. "Let's move."
Su-mil detailed three of his soldiers to take their dead and wounded back into the relative safety of the tunnel. Then, with Su-mil and Twister in the lead, the twelve remaining Eickaries and four stormtroopers set off for the dungeons.
They met no further resistance. Apparently, the squad that had burst in on them from this direction had been the last Lakra who hadn't already been summoned to either the tunnel defenses or to the surface. Alternating his attention between the distant battle reports, his helmet sensors, and the hallways themselves, Twister wondered if he dared hope that even the dungeon guards might have been called away to active service.
No such luck. At Su-mil's murmured warning, he and Shadow swung out around the last corner to find two armored Lakra standing at attention beside a massive metal door, blaster carbines slung over their shoulders.
A direct assault on the dungeons was apparently the last thing anyone in the Warlord's command structure was expecting. The two stormtroopers got off a solid volley before the guards had time to do more than scramble madly for their weapons. As the blaster bolts shredded the mercenaries' armor, Su-mil stepped out of concealment and finished the job with a pair of shots from his projectile weapon. "We must hurry," the Eickarie said as the two Lakra thudded to the floor.